Berlin rally to protest Iran performance

February 7, 2008 10:00am

Critics of a German theater director’s plan to bring his production to Iran will hold a protest rally.

A group called The Committee Against German Culture in Iran has planned a demonstration Friday outside the Berliner Ensemble theater to protest Claud Peymann’s decision to perform Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage And Her Children” in Tehran Feb. 11-14..

The protest is meant to disrupt the opening of Peymann’s production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” at the Berlin theater, which was the artistic home of Brecht.

Peymann has denied the trip is supporting the current regime in Tehran.

Protest organizers said he should be criticizing the anti-Israel statements and Holocaust denial of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and standing up for the rights of oppressed women and homosexuals in Iran.